Rich Kenyans Inject Themselves With Creams To Look White

Standing in a small wooden booth cluttered with brightly colored cosmetics boxes a heavily made up woman unwraps a syringe and a needle, then fills the syringe with pink cream that’s been decanted from a blue packet. “You must only use a small amount, otherwise you can become albino. This is strong stuff,” she says as she pricks her customer’s skin.

Rose is one of dozens of skin bleaching gurus that operate along River Road in downtown Nairobi, a hub for illicit activities that is notorious for its knock-off electronics, budget brothels, flamboyant transsexuals and petty crime. It is also known for its backstreet beauticians, like Rose, who promise clients that their treatments will make them look six years younger and ten shades lighter.

These salons have been around for a long time, and have caused a number of health scares over the years, often due to creams with high mercury content, but recently more extreme treatments have started to become popular and are causing concern amongst health officials.

The popularity of skin-bleaching injections has rocketed over the last 18 months according to Dr Pranav Pancholi, a Harvard-trained dermatologist who works at Kenya’s Shah Hospital. Pranav says because it’s a recent phenomenon, no one really knows what the long-term health implications are.

“The injection lightens you from inside. It makes women clean,” she tells me. “If you want an even color and fast results, injecting is much better than a cream.”

The injection is expensive at $70 per shot, nearly a month’s salary for many Kenyans. “Most of my clients are wealthy and some are national celebrities,” she says. “Many are Somali or Indian. But, those ones never come to my shop. They send a driver with a photo of their skin color and I supply what they need.”

She says her dream is to be as white as a European and she will try anything to achieve her objective. “My husband prefers half-caste women to darker girls, and he is proud to be mine when we go to the club,” she says. “I get far more male attention now I am lighter.”

Do you think skin bleaching is a international problem because the standards of beauty are set by Europeans? When will people of color learn to love themselves and the skin they are in? Read the entire article HERE